Being Mindful Is Not Materialistic

There is a bright future ahead of us...

Mindfulness and Capitalism are not the best of bed-fellows.
 When it comes to learning and understanding the power of being mindful, it leans you away from the idea that love, success and purpose is conditional on wealth. Practicing mindfulness on a regular basis is a wonderful way to discover who YOU really are, and to maintain a happy and healthy relationship with your emotions and moods.

 Yet, companies are using mindfulness to boost profits and increase productivity, which seems to be a Western ideal on an Eastern philosophy.

The question is, is it right for the Western world to take an ancient and powerful source and then to bastardise it for its own benefit? Or, should it leave well alone?

 The Western world is beginning to me to appear like an old wheezing man running out of ideas and trying to hold on to what it once had. The capitalist model is cracking and more and more people are wising up to other ideologies. This will only increase the richer those at the top of the tree get, and the gap between the rich and the not-so rich is getting wider by the hour.

 As more people turn to mindful techniques it becomes fashionable, and once it starts to hit the magazines and those sharks see profits rising it becomes a watchword; once it enters the psyche of business then it becomes a technique which can be adapted and utilised to boost the companies profile, meaning more profits and happier shareholders.

The trick is in the marketing, and those clever people lay back on the tried and trusted model of telling you that this is what you want, and how much it will help you. It's all about you, while behind the curtain those execs are watching the share prices rise.

 Of course, this is the same for anything; for diet pills, or organic foods or new shoes.

 I question their motives, and I do feel that this is an old world way and a new world is on the horizon. But we are stuck with these dinosaurs for the time being, those same people who voted for the UK to leave the EU or who turn a blind eye to racism and discrimination because, well, they've never seen anything! 

Yet while mindfulness is all about you; it is not about companies profits and it is certainly not about lining the pockets of people who earn a fortune with self-help books and the like. Mindfulness and meditation is not about material reward, it is simply about your own happiness and health.

Now I know that we need to earn money in order to survive in this world, and everyone wants to be comfortable. What I don't understand is people practicing mindfulness and then acting like Gordon Gekko, buying up properties and living a lavish lifestyle.

The true reward is inside you, and anything the universe provides for you is a bonus. It is when that lifestyle becomes harmful to people connected to you that it moves away from the spiritual and back into the ego. That brings fear, and that leads to greed. Mindfulness does not deal with fear and greed, but it can help you overcome and deal with your ego.

 Things do change and ideas move on. That is part of a healthy and adaptable world and society.